The Quran in the Al-Bazzi ‘an Ibn Kathir riwaya

Al-Bazzi ‘an Ibn Kathir is one of the two transmissions of the reading of Ibn Kathir, the leading reader of Mecca. Its transmitter, Abu al-Hasan Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Bazzi (786–864; 170–250 AH), served for forty years as muezzin and imam of the Sacred Mosque in Mecca and was the city's foremost teacher of the Quran. Rarely heard in public recitation, it is mainly preserved in the teaching of the readings.

‘Abd Allah ibn Kathir (665–738; 45–120 AH), a Meccan Successor who met Anas ibn Malik and ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr, read with ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Sa’ib, a Companion who had learned from Ubayy ibn Ka‘b and ‘Umar, and with Mujahid and Dirbas, students of Ibn ‘Abbas. Al-Bazzi never met him: he received the reading from ‘Ikrima ibn Sulayman, a student of Isma‘il al-Qust and Shibl ibn ‘Abbad, who had it from Ibn Kathir. It is also through al-Bazzi that the takbir recited at the end of each surah, from al-Duha to the end of the Quran, is known.

Ibn Kathir always extends the plural mim with a "u" (‘alayhimū) and the pronoun hi after a silent consonant (fīhī hudan, 2:2), keeps the separated madd short and reads al-qurān without a hamza. Al-Bazzi also doubles the initial t of certain verbs in 31 places, as in wa-lā ttafarraqū (3:103). In 2022 the King Fahd Complex in Medina published a copy of the Quran in his transmission for the first time. For the other transmitter, see Qunbul; some recordings combine both: al-Bazzi and Qunbul.

Reciters who have recorded it include Ahmed Aissa El Masarawi and Mohammed Mustafa Al-Zayat.